Kawerau training

With the river flowing super high after yet more rain most of the north island members of the junior team headed to Kawerau for a session. There are some gates hanging on the lower course at the moment and after a few more were set up some of the team did full runs whilst others did short technical courses. Another great warm day in the Bay of Plenty ;-)
Happy Birthday Bruce Webber who spent the day teaching a group on the Tarawera river too.

Training camp

This weekend, Anna, Carl, Laurence, Cole headed down to Mangahao slalom course for a long weekend's paddling and coaching from national team member and coach Aaron Osbourne.

Whilst the water releases haven't played ball for them, they have managed to get a couple of sessions on the river and also some valuable technical sessions on the flatwater gates at Palmy north lagoon as well as a good surf session at the beach to improve their hole jumping skills.

Thanks Lou Higgins for organising the camp.

The team this year is traveling to Canada and USA for nearly a month. Starting in Ottawa with about 8 days big water paddling, followed by the long drive to Wausau, Wisconsin, USA the site of next years junior world champs and under 23's world champs. Finally the team will race at the river festival at Carlton, Duluth.
The paddlers are as follows....(in no particular order)
Anna Higgins
Kelly Travers
Finn Butcher
Carl Whitehead
Geoff Johnson
Cole O'connor Stratton
Laurence Brown
Marcus Norbury
Robert Hervey
Matthew Arnott
Andy Fuller and Michelle Kvanli (from USA) will be coaching whilst Dale Butcher and Wendy Roberston are managing the trip.

Team 2011 heads off soon- follow their travels on this blog